I believe Stephen King is the most talented commercial writer working today, and his best novels, like his recent 11/22/63, are so beyond the abilities of most novelists, it's not even funny. His way with prose, character development, and most especially dialogue is just stellar. Even minor characters (for example, Lee Harvey Oswald's mom in 11/22/63) are fleshed out to an extent that rivals other writers' MAJOR characters.

Having said this, some of his stories are pretty bad. Long and meandering and anticlimactic. I nominate Under the Dome as probably his worst book; at least, his worst recent book. This novel is like 1000+ pages long and has the most ridiculous protagonist in it (this wimpy soldier guy [I forgot his name] who is somehow entrusted by the US government to help out but is promptly arrested and stays in jail for like half the story). Worse is the ending. It's like Stephen King said to himself, Hey, my novel's starting to get too long, and he just threw his arbitrary tragedy into it that abruptly ends everything. I can't really explain it more without spoiling it (though this turd of a story can't really be spoiled), but it just truly sucked.

For me it was Lisey's Story. I really tried to read it, but the lead character was SO repetitive. Yeah, we get it, your husband was a great guy, and it really sucked that he was shot and killed, but do we really need to hear about it over and over and over again for page after page?

It's the first King book I couldn't finish.

Also King's endings are notoriously weak. I think he builds up a great tense story and then has no idea how he's going to wrap it up.

Needful Things. That is the point at which it became irrefutably obvious to me that he was a hack. I hadn't liked It, which I read when it was new. After realizing that he could (and would) publish anything I looked back at it and admitted that it was not a good book.

I think that the later Dark Tower books could, collectively, be called King's worst book. King doesn't plot out his books in advance (in fact, he's said anyone who does this isn't a real author), and the flaw of this becomes readily apparent when you're trying to write an epic that spans thousands of pages.

I knew I should have stopped reading that series when Stephen King introduced Stephen King as a major character, but I had committed too much time already to not see how it ended. Even worse than that though was the big reveal that:

I also find it strange to hear The Stand come up. I know everybody is different but I would love to know if they like any of his other books, if so which ones. I really loved Pet Cemetery but I was about 18 when I read it. I know lots do no like that one . I just find it strange the book more people would say is the best makes the worst list.

I've only read about a dozen of King's books. Some I really liked (Pet Cemetary, Salem's Lot, The Dark Half...), some not so much. I hated Thinner, I don't think I even finished it. I really hated The Stand, but I've heard it said many times it's an incredible book so I forced myself to keep reading hoping it would get better... it didn't.